Canada cruises past Finland to reach final

Fast start carries Canadians to 5-1 semifinal win

Apr. 13, 2012

Canada's Caroline Oullette celebrates her goal during Friday's world championship semifinal against Finland at Gutterson Fieldhouse. Canada won, 7-1, and will play for the title Saturday night. / GLENN RUSSELL, Free Press

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With his team facing a confident opponent and a standout goalie, Canadian coach Dan Church knew the opening few minutes of the IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship semifinal against Finland were vital.

He asked his players to compete with a sense of urgency early, something he felt was lacking during three preliminary-round games.

The Canadians obliged, taking a lickety-split lead and cruising to a 5-1 win against Finland on Friday afternoon at Gutterson Fieldhouse.

Team Canada will seek its 10th championship but first since 2007 when it plays either the United States or Switzerland in the gold-medal game Saturday night at Gutterson.

Five players found the back of the net for Canada, which scored twice in the opening 4 minutes, 53 seconds and was up 3-0 early in the second period. It was a perfect start against Finnish star goalie Noora Raty.

“They have such a great goalie,” Canadian forward Meghan Agosta said. “We just had to get shots on net and get to her early.”

Mission accomplished. The Canadians went up 1-0 on Caroline Ouellette’s goal 3:28 into regulation and 2-0 a minute and a half later, Lauren Fortino scoring while Canada had an extra skater because of a delayed Finland penalty.

“(We) came out and really worked hard, got to the net and did the things we needed to do,” Church said. “We really had a good focus to start the game.”

Raty, who led University of Minnesota to an NCAA championship, finished with 38 saves but couldn’t hold off a Canada team that had a 43-15 edge in shots. Raty stopped 43 shots in Finland’s 3-2 win over Canada a week ago in the preliminary round. In the rematch, Canada was on the attack from the opening faceoff.

Canada pushed its lead to 3-0 with Agosta’s goal 2:06 into the second period before Finland stemmed the tide — at least temporarily.

Producing a series of scoring opportunities in the second period, Finland broke through with Karoliina Rantamaki’s power-play goal at 10:32 to dull Canada’s edge to 3-1. Camped on the left post, Rantamaki tipped in Saija Tarkki’s blast from the blue line.

However, Canada regained a big cushion in the third period when Marie-Philip Poulin tallied with 7:48 remaining and Courtney Birchard tacked on a power-play goal with 1:20 left.

“We were a little bit on our heels and they got the two goals,” Finland coach Pekka Hiirikoski said. “The second period was OK, but one good period isn’t enough to win against a team like Canada.”

Shannon Szabados finished with 14 saves for Canada, which is 55-0-1 all-time against Finland.

“I thought we played a full 60 minutes and we battled hard,” Fortino said.

Finland will play in the bronze-medal game Saturday afternoon at Gutterson Fieldhouse. Finland has finished third 10 times in the world championships and twice won Olympic bronze medals.